How (Over) Confident Are Financial Analysts?

Extensive research has been devoted to the quality of analysts' earnings forecasts. The common finding is that analysts' forecasts are not very accurate. Prior studies have tended to focus on the mean of forecasts and measure accuracy using various summaries of forecast errors. The present study sheds new light on the accuracy of analysts' forecasts, by measuring how well calibrated these forecasts are. The authors follow the tradition of calibration studies in psychological literature and measure the degree of calibration by the hit rate. They analyze a year's worth of data from the Institutional Brokers Estimate System database, which includes over 200,000 annual earnings forecasts made by over 6,000 analysts for over 5,000 companies. By using different ways to convert analysts' point estimates of earnings into a range of values, the authors establish the bounds that are necessary to determine the hit rates, and examine to what extent the actual earnings announced by the companies are bracketed by these intervals. These hit rates provide a more complete picture of the accuracy of the forecasts.     

The New York Times and Wall Street Journal: Does Their Coverage of Earnings Announcements Cause “Stale” News to Become “New” News?

Recent research suggests that the stock market reacts to stale information if it is reported in the media because it is gives the impression of being “new” news. The objective of this study is to provide a unique test of this hypothesis using the time-series properties of quarterly earnings. It is well documented that seasonally differenced quarterly earnings for adjacent quarters are positively correlated. Therefore a component of current quarter earnings when reported is news that was known or predictable at the end of the prior quarter and thus is old news. We find for those firms that receive media coverage in the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times that the price reaction at the time of the announcement of current earnings to past quarter's seasonally differenced quarterly earnings is greater than those firms that do not receive media coverage. The result is consistent with stale earnings information being given the appearance of new information resulting in a further price reaction. This suggests that the stale information hypothesis and media coverage could be a partial explanation for post-earnings announcement drift.     

Toward an Understanding of the Risky Choice Behavior of Professional Financial Analysts

Several studies have reported inefficiencies and/or biases in analysts' ability to incorporate new information into their earnings forecasts. We propose that an important psychological factor associated with optimistic earnings forecasts is the propensity of analysts to engage in risky choice behavior as described by prospect theory. Furthermore, the motivational incentives faced by analysts may exacerbate risky choice behavior during forecast revision, thereby magnifying overestimates of earnings.

Sixty professional financial analysts were asked to issue a first quarter and then an annual EPS forecast of a company. The analysts were randomly assigned to two initial forecast accuracy conditions that indicated their initial forecast earnings was 1) essentially the same as actual earnings, or 2) substantially higher than actual earnings. Analysts were also assigned to one of three motivational incentive conditions indicating the analyst and brokerage firm would 1) have no future contact with the forecast firm, 2) begin to follow the forecast firm, or 3) establish an underwriting relationship with the forecast firm.

The results indicate that analysts who perceived a loss function due to the inaccuracy of prior earnings forecasts tended to choose riskier prospects in subsequent forecast revisions than analysts who perceived their prior earnings forecasts to be accurate. These riskier prospects translate into greater overestimates of earnings. Furthermore, while the average risk attitude of the analysts was optimistic, higher levels of motivational incentives were associated with greater risk-seeking behavior by the analysts who perceive a loss function. It appears that the motivational incentives inherent in brokerage firms can exacerbate the risky choice behavior of financial analysts during forecast revision. These findings support the utility of incorporating both cognitive and motivational factors into the prediction of analyst behavior.     

Do political connections decrease the accuracy of stock analysts' recommendations in the Chinese stock market?

This paper studies the association between the accuracy of analysts' recommendations and political connections in the Chinese stock market. As most brokerage firms in China are state-owned, it raises concerns about conflicts of interest among their employed analysts issuing recommendations for Chinese state-owned enterprises. Based on 8469 analysts' recommendations with different ratings for both state-owned and non-state-owned enterprises from 74 brokerage firms, we document that analysts' recommendations are less accurate for Chinese state-owned enterprises, which supports the hypothesis that conflicts of interest create recommendation biases. Political connections encourage analysts to be more optimistic on SOEs and even to generate misleading “Buy” and “Hold” recommendations. Our results demonstrate the existence of an optimism bias among politically connected analysts on state-owned enterprises in China.     

Earnings management by firms announcing earnings after SEC filing

This study examines motivation and stock market reactions of firms announcing earnings in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) after filing with the Security Exchange Commission (SEC). Most firms announce earnings in the WSJ before SEC filing. Firms that reverse this sequence are voluntarily delaying public earnings announcements. The authors find that these firms are not only poor financial performers but also engage in earnings managements. They are delaying their WSJ announcements to postpone announcing bad news. The authors find significant stock price reactions to both the SEC filing and the WSJ announcement. The price reaction to earnings is incomplete at the SEC filings. The market continues reacting to firms' subsequent WSJ announcements as if the SEC filing fails to communicate earnings information to some investors.     

The Effect of Annual Earnings Announcements on the Chinese Stock Markets

This paper examines the annual earnings announcement effect of the stock markets in China. The investigation is based on events analysis and carried out by modeling the daily changes of stock returns using the M-EGARCH approach, by testing the news effects of annual earnings announcement on the conditional mean of abnormal return and the variance of the returns. It is found that a higher than expected earnings announcement leads to a rise in the conditional mean of stock returns on days before the news announcement and a fall afterwards. The conditional volatility of the changes are significantly reduced by bigger absolute values of reported earnings before the news announcement and increased afterwards, supporting the rejection of semi-strong-form efficiency.     

证券分析师的盈余预测和股票评级是否具有独立性?

本文通过构建理论模型和实证检验全面分析了证券分析师所面临的利益关系对其所发布的信息质量的影响,结果表明:证券分析师为了维护与基金等机构投资者以及公司内部投资银行部门的关系,倾向于发布偏乐观的盈余预测和股票评级;声誉较高的分析师也同样不能在各种利益关系的漩涡中保持独立.这些结果揭示了我国证券分析师独立性缺失的利益根源,并为监管层规范和发展证券分析师行业提供了重要的理论依据.     

Analyst earnings forecast revisions and the persistence of antidumping relief

Panel corrected standard errors with instrumental variables and effects are invoked to assess the significance of earnings forecast revisions around critical dates in non-steel AD petitions filed in 1985–1987. These petitions were filed between two important US trade law revisions (1984 and 1988), and the period encompasses significant stock market advances and declines. Event studies have been invoked to assess the value of AD petitions. However, they do not estimate the temporal distribution of any abnormal returns. Because analysts make quarterly earnings forecast revisions over several horizons, we can assess the short and long run value of petitions. We find that AD petitions tend to depress earnings forecasts in the year of the petition. However, second year earnings forecasts tend to be revised upwards. There is no effect on five year (long term) earnings growth forecasts. Hence any benefits of protection do not persist. There is evidence that analysts anticipate the filing by revising forecasts in the three months in advance of the filing. We also find that AD petitions do not affect the accuracy of forecasts.     

The frequency and magnitude of earnings management: Time-series and multi-threshold comparisons

We measure the frequency and magnitude of earnings management assuming earnings follow a mixed-normal distribution. We show that the frequency of earnings management is the highest when firms try to meet analysts' forecasted earnings and furthermore the trend is magnified in recent years. Additionally, more firms manage earnings to avoid earnings decreases rather than to avoid negative earnings. Furthermore, the magnitude of earnings management is the greatest when firms try to avoid earnings decreases. Earnings managements to avoid negative and decreased earnings are lower in recent years, and the magnitude of earnings management to meet forecasted earnings became dominant after 2001.     

Analyst Behavior: The Geography of Social Interaction

In this paper, I provide empirical evidence that an analyst working in Germany is more likely to publish a high (low) price target regarding a DAX30 stock when other Germany based analysts are also optimistic (pessimistic) about the same stock. This effect of geographical proximity is not biased by the fact that DAX30 companies are headquartered in Germany. Shedding light on how influence takes place, I show that influence through communication and the exchange of opinion within small groups of analysts plays a vital role. This mainly applies during a bullish market environment. When markets are bearish, analysts' incentives induce them not to deviate too much from the overall average, such that then observational learning has a greater impact.     

盈余信息披露、投资者行为与市场内幕交易

本文以2008—2017年的季报、半年报和年报盈余公告信息为研究对象,利用Fama MacBeth横截面回归方法考察了公司高管和机构投资者的内幕交易行为。研究发现：（1）我国股票市场的盈余漂移异象在盈余公告前后具有明显的非对称性,股价倾向于在盈余公告前（后）对“好（坏）消息”反应过度、对“坏（好）消息”反应不足;（2）盈余公告前,机构投资者的资金净流入（出）与公司的未预期盈余之间呈显著正相关关系;（3）盈余漂移异象在不同板块之间存在明显的分化效应,在盈余公告前,主板市场对“好消息”的反应程度弱于中小板和创业板,而在盈余公告后正好相反。     

从股票错误定价看投资-现金流敏感性

在传统的投资-现金流敏感性研究基础上,本文运用中国上市公司2003-2008年面板数据,考察了盈余管理造成的股票错误定价对公司投资-现金流敏感性的影响.本文的实证结果表明:当股价处于上升通道中时(即投资者看好投资前景时),公司的投资-现金流敏感性较高,并且融资约束对公司的投资-现金流敏感性影响显著,但盈余操纵导致错误定价对公司投资-现金流敏感性影响不大;股指处于下降通道时,通过盈余操纵导致股价高估的公司,往往无法获得外部股权融资,只体现了更高的稳定股价和投资的意愿,因此,此类公司的投资-现金流敏感性较高.本文运用信息不对称理论,结合投资者情绪和管理者行为分析,对研究结果进行了解释并指出了后续研究的方向.     

Does director affiliation lead to analyst bias?

This study examines the ability of security analysts to provide objective earnings forecasts for firms with which the analyst’s brokerage firm has a director affiliation. The affiliation that we examine is where the brokerage firm has, on its board of directors, a director or an upper management individual from the firm which an analyst at the brokerage firm provides coverage. We find that affiliated analysts tend to provide earnings forecasts that are insignificantly different from unaffiliated analysts in terms of accuracy. However, we also find that forecasts provided by affiliated analysts tend to be significantly more pessimistic than those provided by their unaffiliated counterparts. This pessimistic bias in their earnings forecast will more easily allow the covered firm to beat earnings expectations when earnings are realized. We find that this bias surfaced after the Global Settlement decision, an enforcement agreement between large investment banks and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding issues surrounding conflicts of interest.     

Do Sell-Side Stock Analysts Exhibit Escalation of Commitment?

This paper presents evidence that when an analyst makes an out-of-consensus forecast of a company's quarterly earnings that turns out to be incorrect, she escalates her commitment to maintaining an out-of-consensus view on the company. Relative to an analyst who was close to the consensus, the out-of-consensus analyst adjusts her forecasts for the current fiscal year's earnings less in the direction of the quarterly earnings surprise. On average, this type of updating behavior reduces forecasting accuracy, so it does not seem to reflect superior private information. Further empirical results suggest that analysts do not have financial incentives to stand by extreme stock calls in the face of contradictory evidence. Managerial and financial market implications are discussed.     

How do the combined effects of CEO decision horizon and compensation impact the relationship between earnings pressure and R&D retrenchment?

Although relevant literature has been accumulated, how earnings pressure from stock analysts affects a firm's innovation expenditures remains unclear. In order to make this relationship more clear, this study investigates the impact of earnings pressure on a firm's research and development (R&D) investment by considering the combined effects of CEOs’ decision horizon and incentives. Our hypotheses were tested by firms from the S&P 1500 during the period from 2000 to 2012. The findings reveal that earnings pressure has a detrimental effect on a firm's R&D investment, and also that it goes worse when CEOs have a shorter decision horizon. However, when it comes to compensation incentives, we found that either CEOs equipped with higher stock ownership or fewer stock options can reduce the adverse effect of a shorter decision horizon on the relationship between earnings pressure and R&D retrenchment.     

我国盈利公告效应的动态特征

国外对盈利公告效应(earnings announcement effect)的研究得出两条规律:(1)提前依次异动:股价不仅在盈利公告当日依次变动,而且之前已提早反应。(2)后动有序持续:股价的走势在公告后较长时间内依然不变。这两条规律在我国也存在吗?本文旨在探索上述市场规律,寻找我国盈利公告效应的动态特征。我们运用事件分析法考察了1998—2000年闻沪市对上市公司盈利公告的反应。结果发现,上述两条规律在我国均有不同形式的体现。首先,股价确有提前异动,但仅限于盈利有增长的公司,其原因并非完全出于市场预期,却不排除有消息泄露的可能性。其次,股价亦有后动持续现象,但相当无序,表现最佳的竟为盈利最差的公司,其股价在公告之后大幅上涨;究其原因,它与我国特有的宝贵"壳资源"现象关系密切。     

会计信息可比性与上市公司业绩预告外溢效应

现有信息披露对资本市场影响的实证研究主要集中研究公司信息披露与自身股价之间的关系。本文对我国上市公司2007—2017年发布的业绩预告的信息外溢效应进行了检验,发现上市公司业绩预告对行业内其他公司的市场反应具有显著解释力,表明我国资本市场业绩预告存在信息外溢现象。并且,公司间会计信息可比性越高,外溢效应越显著,表明会计信息可比性促进了公司间的信息传递,对投资者股票交易具有决策参考意义。进一步检验发现,可比性对信息外溢效应的促进作用在市场竞争更激烈的公司中更为显著。此外,预告公司和非预告公司的信息环境对信息传递的影响有所差异。本文研究结论为我国资本市场外部性现象提供经验证据,对于信息披露质量要求以及披露监管政策研究具有启示意义。     

中国A股市场对股票交易实行特别处理(ST)的公告的反应

本文运用超额收益法和多元回收分析法,研究了我国A股市场对股票交易实行特别处理的公告的反应。我们的研究发现市场对该公告有显著的负反应。分年度的研究表明1998年市场对该公告的负反应比1999年显著。同时我们的研究结果也证明了盈余公告具有信息含量。     

Accruals quality,managers’ incentives and stock market reaction: evidence from Europe

We investigate if accruals quality is a valuable indicator of earnings quality for stock market investors. Our particular focus is on the incremental informative value of taking into account managers’ incentives for using accruals. We propose a market-based approach for assessing the usefulness of this indicator to improve investors’ decisions. Specifically, we examine the association between accruals quality and information asymmetry among stock market participants. Our empirical study uses data on European firms and our results are consistent with a positive association between poor earnings quality and high information asymmetry. However, given some previous studies suggesting that accruals-based measures may be noisy indicators of earnings quality, we develop a method to increase the informational content of the accruals quality measure. Based on our results, we find that combining accruals quality with the dispersion in analysts’ forecasts provides a better indicator of earnings quality rather than only accruals quality.     

Value Relevance of Earnings in an Emerging Capital Market: the Case of A-shares in China

This study investigates the value relevance of earnings in the emerging capital market of China by examining the information content of accounting earnings measured under the People's Republic of China Accounting Standards (PRC-GAAP). Based on the A-shares of listed Chinese firms during 1994–97, a significant association is observed between annual market-adjusted stock return and the change of earnings. Also documented is a significant price reaction to the annual earnings announcement in a three-day window centered around the announcement date. Overall, the empirical results suggest that earnings reported in China are value-relevant to A-share investors.